


chariots of fire from space

by systemscheck



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:13:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24646981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/systemscheck/pseuds/systemscheck
Summary: Quite ironically, the accident happened when Crowley wasn’t even driving.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 31





	chariots of fire from space

Quite ironically, the accident happened when Crowley wasn’t even driving. 

He had been encouraging Aziraphale to try taking the wheel of the Bentley. This was in part to make him stop whining about Crowley’s driving prowess, and also because Crowley was just a little bit curious if there was truly only one speed demon between them. Under Crowley’s reckless guidance, Aziraphale had learnt to start, stop, and parallel park. Sometimes, he could even miracle the inevitable roadkill back to life without crying. 

That afternoon, Aziraphale was making quite the journey. A Hokkaido bakery had recently opened in Soho, and Crowley had invited him to try their cheese tarts on one condition: that Aziraphale serve as his personal chauffeur. This would be the longest trip Aziraphale had ever embarked upon, and thanks to the combination of excellent instruction and motivation Crowley had provided, everything was going swimmingly. 

The weather was unusually cooperative. The sun peeked out modestly behind fluffy white clouds, the wheels on the Bentley turned round and round, and Crowley cranked back his seat at a more comfortable angle. Beside him, Aziraphale was the very model of perfect driving behaviour. Granted, his angelic nature meant that he was supposed to embody goodness at every turn, but Crowley still wanted to give him points for effort. What could Aziraphale redeem them for at the end of the drive? Crowley had already promised decadent imported cheese tarts. Maybe he could drizzle chocolate sauce over them. Thinking about chocolate sauce and tarts made his mind wander to a very different sort of tart, and if Aziraphale would enjoy tasting another version of this treat. 

Crowley was pleasantly daydreaming about how best to implement his point system when the other car hit. 

The impact jolted both of them forward, and Aziraphale’s shriek was muffled by the sudden inflation of their airbags. Unable to see, Aziraphale would have driven into oncoming traffic if not for Crowley yanking the steering wheel around[1]. They spun multiple times until Aziraphale remembered to take his foot off the pedal, after which the Bentley careened into a grassy road divider. The fence in the middle shattered the windshield all over their laps. 

The passenger compartment was filled with the noise of harsh breathing for a while. Neither of them were hurt, obviously. Crowley turned to check Aziraphale over anyway, brushing fragments of glass out of his hair. 

Aziraphale’s pale curls were matted with sweat. He didn’t respond when Crowley shouted his name, used Her name in vain, or swatted his arm. 

A round-faced woman showed up at Crowley’s window and began banging on it. The noise was annoying, but served to rouse Aziraphale. 

“Open the door, Crowley” mumbled Aziraphale. “She’s probably worried about casualties.”

Sure enough, the woman needed reassurances that they were quite alright, just a little bruise here and there, nothing that needed a doctor to look at, yes, really, the accident probably looked worse from the outside. She finally went away after they asked her to call a tow truck. 

Indeed, the sight that greeted Crowley after he slithered out of the wounded vehicle was very, very bad. Miracling this wreck back to normal was going to be a total bitch. 

“Oh dear,” said Aziraphale, touching his elbow. “Do you want to check in on the other driver?”

Crowley hissed, “Yeah, I’m going to murder that fucker,” and when Aziraphale shot him a Look Crowley amended his vow to, “I will send this idiot Downstairs.”

“Or up,” said Aziraphale, no stranger to performing mercy kills. 

Unfortunately[2],or fortunately[3], the person sitting behind the wheel of the car that had rear-ended them was unharmed. His capacity for pissing off Crowley was intact as well, spouting apologies nonstop like a burst sewer pipe. Most aggravatingly, his vehicle had escaped nearly completely unscathed: the only evidence was a small crater on its hood. It was a nice car too, all sleek lines and immaculate detailing. Spotless, in fact. Crowley felt anger squeeze behind his ribs. 

“Do you have motor insurance,” Crowley demanded. Behind the lens of his aviators, his pupils were narrowing into narrower slits. 

“W-what?” The man’s accent was American. Go figure. 

“Motor insurance,” said Crowley, enunciating each syllable crispier than a thrice-damned soul swimming in the lake of fire. “You know, the thing that you need when you go vroom-vroom on the road and get in a ka-boom-boom.” 

And this was a very big ka-boom-boom. Crowley wasn’t hurt, of course, and had been surprised that the man didn’t have a scratch on him too. Well, all the better to get the interrogation over with. Crowley was going to get ahold of this idiot’s insurance agent and demand the man’s firstborn, favourite bong and/or testicles as compensation, after extricating the full cost of restoration for his poor Bentley. He didn’t need the money, since whatever repairs to be made could be accomplished without outside help. The damage to the car was a mere trifle compared to the damage to his pride. Damning this human soul for eternity would be the cherry on top. 

The man’s brow wrinkled like he could already see the world of shit in store for him.

“I do not have this ‘motor insurance’,” he finally said. 

Crowley growled and slapped the hood of the man’s car. The man flinched. 

“That’s illegal, mate. You could be barred from driving for life[4], and I say you’ll be getting off lightly.”

Crowley was about to elaborate, but a blond teenager riding by on a motorbike interrupted. 

“You haven’t gotten your hazard light on, pal,” he called. 

“Ahem,” said Crowley; the Bentley’s rear was crumpled so badly as to resemble a wadded-up chewing gum wrapper. Its tail lights were completely inoperable. 

“Not you, him.” He rapped the side of the car with leather-clad knuckles and sped off. 

“You need to switch on your hazard light,” Crowley repeated. 

“Ah,”said the man. “I beg your pardon; what is a hazard light?” 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Crowley muttered crossly under his breath. “The button should be under the stereo.”

The man started to fumble around blindly. The interior of his car was very dark; Crowley couldn’t make out anything on his dashboard other than a softly glowing screen. Its display was blank save for a funny little symbol like the car belonged to a gang. Crowley recokoned the man was too stupid even for criminal activity. A cult, then. That could explain the lack of commonsense. 

“I don’t know where it is,” said the man, after five wretched minutes of fumbling around. “Maybe I could go to a store and find it for you.”

Crowley didn’t even know if you could just buy hazard lights. He knew it had something to do with electricity, and like God’s grace was something he trusted in other people to know how it functioned. 

“Nope. How about you try that screen? Press it, use the menu to find the controls?” 

“That won’t work,” the man immediately said.

The last of Crowley’s patience dissipated like oil on a hot pan. “You won’t know unless you try,” he snapped. 

He stuck his arm through the lowered window and reached for the screen. The man moved to intercept him, though he had underestimated the length of Crowley’s limbs and the degree of his persistence. Crowley scrabbled wildly and tried to shove the man aside. 

His fingers brushed empty air. Crowley’s hand had simply—passed through the man’s torso, and when he wriggled his fingers experimentally there was none of the screaming he would have expected from someone whose internal organs were being rearranged. The man was an illusion. 

“Oh my,” Aziraphale breathed, “She has sent us a vision,” and Crowley had to pull him back just as the car abruptly withdrew and sped away, breaking through the safety barricade that had been set up around the accident site. 

They gave chase on a bike stolen from the traffic officer who’d stopped nearby to give tickets, Aziraphale riding pillion this time. He clung onto the demon as they debated whatever the fuck had just happened. 

“Maybe it’s a test,” said Aziraphale, trying to lean into the hairpin turns Crowley was making and only managed in making his seat more precarious. 

“Heavenly ambassadors are usually more corporeal.” Crowley’s objection sounded weak even to himself. What else was a perfectly lifelike apparition supposed to be? Human technology had only succeeded in making cartoon girls sing and dance, and up close the illusion failed. 

The apparent vision started to go for one of London’s famous roundabouts, and Crowley could already see the disaster that was sure to result. 

“Oh no you don’t,” he muttered, and told Crowley to hang on.

The dinky little bike cut an unimposing figure. Nevertheless, Crowley succeeded in making the mysterious car grind to a halt by scooting right in front of it and stopping. Conveniently, this manoeuvre was executed in a deserted back alley; all the better to deal with whatever ineffable nonsense was going on. 

Crowley shook out his shoulders and stalked over, Aziraphale following at a safe distance. 

“I don’t care if Gabriel, or Sachiel, or She herself told you to come down from on high and get big bad Crowley into a fender bender. I know demons who will be very, very glad to have you for playtime, and they are orders of magnitude more creative than any of the Impressionists on your side. All of them combined, actually.” 

The man merely sat there in the car. It was disappointing. At this point Aziraphale was already bracing himself for some kind of divine wrath to manifest.

“Sod you,” Crowley screamed, and kicked the vehicle. 

Later, Crowley would contend that it was a very small kick. He hadn’t been using any more strength than the average human could generate. The blow was not premeditated; he had no idea it would hurt.

“Ow,” said the car, and Crowley stumbled backwards. He’d seen the driver’s lips move, but there was no way a real person would react that way. 

“Did you hear that?”

“I’m afraid, yes.”

“Aziraphale,” said Crowley, not taking his eyes off the car. “Come here and hit it again. The same place—that dent on the front.” He wanted to find out if the car was only reacting to him, like some kind of glitch. 

“That’s a little excessive, don’t you think,” said Aziraphale. “And I do think possession is a Satanic enterprise.” 

In other words, Crowley was on his own. He landed another solid thwack. Nothing happened. 

Did he imagine it, or did the human—a projection, perhaps—tremble ever so slightly? 

Crowley swung his leg back again, ready to go another round, when suddenly there wasn’t a car to kick anymore. In its place stood an enormous, silvery-blue robot. When Crowley craned his neck way up, he could see the scuffed spot where his boots had marred the finish. There was also, he noticed, a largish pointy thing on its shoulder that strongly resembled a gun. 

Aziraphale squeaked. 

# 

To everyone’s relief, violence did not ensure[5].

“We should have sex in that car,” growled Crowley. “Teach this jerk what it means to disrespect a vehicle.” 

“Crowley!” 

“I’m pulling your leg, angel,” said Crowley, although his gaze tracked down the alien’s shiny metal arse consideringly. Lacking a human soul, all the tortures Crowley had dreamt up for him were useless now. 

“What are you here for, anyway,” Aziraphale asked the robot. 

“To keep the peace.”

“Uh-huh,” said Crowley. “You gotta be more specific. There are several problems plaguing this world, in care you haven’t noticed. Refugee crises, Middle Eastern insurgencies, Tiktok trends making kids drop IQ points by the second[6]…”

“You misunderstand. We protect humankind from the ongoing conflict with our mortal enemies, the Decepticons. Not from your self-inflicted problems.”

“Ahhh,” went Crowley and Aziraphale, thankful that their jobs weren’t being destroyed by foreigners. Crowley was glad these aliens weren’t going to undo all the demon horde’s hard work. Aziraphale, on the other hand, had been suffering a crisis of faith upon learning that these peacekeepers possessed abilities even an angel could be jealous of. 

“Hey,” said Crowley, feeling generous. Not repentant, of course. Penance was for Christians. “Don’t quote me on this, but the shitstorm boiling in this teakettle is about to blow. It’d be a good idea to wrap up whatever you have going on with these Econs and get the Hell outta here.” 

“The Great War has lasted for millennia,” said Mirage. “It is highly unlikely one side will emerge victorious anytime soon.” 

“Oh.”

Aziraphale told the robot to look up the Book of Revelations. 

“You guys should uh, get going while the going’s good,” said Crowley, fiddling with his keys. “Full steam ahead on the alien spaceship.”

The robot’s engine rumbled in a way suspiciously close to a sigh. 

“Our ship’s stuck under a volcano.” 

“You mentioned another faction—how about their ship,” Aziraphale asked. 

Mirage’s eyes dimmed. 

“Well… they crashed into the  ocean[7].”

Crowley smiled. “Pity your kind isn’t very good at driving, aren’t you?”

**Author's Note:**

> 1 Fangs are very useful. In case you were wondering how Crowley managed this feat, he simply punctured his airbag. ▲  
> 2 To Crowley. ▲  
> 3 To Aziraphale. ▲  
> 4 This is a lie. The longest period of disqualification on a Great Britain driving license is two years. Whether Crowley fudged the details to intimidate or didn’t actually know himself is up to the reader, depending on how much you like the demon. ▲  
> 5 Explaining the reason they were back at their respective administration’s headquarters would have involved a truly odious amount of paperwork. ▲  
> 6 If Mirage wasn’t so traumatised, he might have wondered about the note of pride that entered Crowley’s voice. ▲  
> 7 This was, in fact, Mirage’s fault. The Decepticons can be fine pilots when they aren’t busy plotting, scheming, conniving, backstabbing etc. etc. ▲


End file.
